


monster

by xiumin



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 19:38:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7327594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xiumin/pseuds/xiumin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In protecting their country from external mutant threats with Squad EXO, Baekhyun and Jongdae discover the monsters in their backyard. </p><p>based on the fifth wave and the monster and lucky one music videos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	monster

**Author's Note:**

> thanks ang, karen, emily for being the cutest cheerleaders uwuwu

_They wake together._

_Jongdae’s in a white room, so endless and monotonous he’s quite blinded. It’s cold in just his white scrubs. Tubes out of his arm, syringes on a cart next to him. A huge window in a wall, like an observation platform for the room. There are other beds around him – his squad members – with the same white sheets and bed railings. The railings, he finds, are the resistance when he lifts his arm circled with a cold metal handcuff. The rattle of handcuff against steel sounds everywhere around the room, but his torso is too heavy to sit up. There’s a tiny bit of a tingle in his fingers, something between electricity and fire, the marker that readies his weapon, but it’s snuffed right after it registers. Handcuffs should have been nothing to him – just a couple million extra volts out of the tip of his finger would have been enough to break steel._

_There’s a figure at the window, then just as if there was a switch in him, he’s out cold._

\---

06:00 – squad wakes up. Today Baekhyun’s alarm is Chanyeol’s fucking bony joints in his back, because his squad member is a shit, so Baekhyun races out of his bed to park himself under the bunk's only shower first in retaliation. Chanyeol sprays military-grade mouthwash in his face. 

06:30 – inspection. Baekhyun has his boots laced on the dot when their sergeant walks in their bunk and surveys their uniform, beds, makes Junmyeon shine his boots till Baekhyun can see his face in them. Gives them the approval to proceed. 

07:00 – breakfast. Baekhyun knows the exact degree to angle his body, Jongdae the exact second to distract the server so the cameras can’t catch Baekhyun nicking an extra roll off the serving tray. They split it every morning – one of the best instances of teamwork their squad can show, in Baekhyun’s opinion. 

07:30 – run. Five kilometres to start, a round of the obstacle course under sixty seconds – or it’s restart from the run – fifty pushups then another five kilometres with the full weight of their combat gear. Baekhyun cricks his neck and always feels, even though it’s been years since his first day, the chip that’s inserted in all new recruits in the back of their necks, just above the start of the spine. _A tracker that helps the camp know where everyone is, so the Major can keep everyone safe,_ they’d been told. Baekhyun still remembers the day that he’d been scouted by the Major himself, trembling in his shoes as a teenager watching the chief commander of this camp shake his hand. Tearing his eyes from the chains the Major had linking his lip and collar, so striking and imposing that Baekhyun had been sure it was a sign of authority before he’d stepped foot into camp. Listening to the Major explain the threats superpower mutants could pose to the country. Watching the footage of what other mutants had done in other countries, ravaging civilization and leaving destruction in their wake. Hearing the Major declare, with a piercing stare that Baekhyun could not have managed to reject in his awe and abject fear, that Baekhyun was one of the only individuals in the country to be able to do anything against a similar attack. That the government army was setting up a classified programme, codenamed Monster, to put these individuals together to train for the possibility of mutant invasion. Feeling honoured beyond words to hear the Major ask him to join the government in protecting their homeland. 

Here he is, in Squad EXO in the Monster programme, the special weapon the government’s preparing against future threats. A squad that’s full of mutants, too, but with the faithfulness and heart to put their powers to good use. Between them Baekhyun thinks they have a pretty good chance; lightning and wind and fire and water in the palm of their hands. No need for field medical training – because Yixing’s there to heal anything – or field vehicles – because Jongin flashes everywhere, anywhere faster than you can start up a tank. Baekhyun’s glad he’s on the side of this team that he’s trained alongside for years now, pushed through the drills in storms and insufferable heat together with, the squad that he’s come to call family. It’s basic human nature; spending every waking and sleeping moment with someone breeds kindredship, but going through hell together forges strength in bonds. They're a big reason he wakes up every day to endure the drills for. 

It’s grueling, fucking back-breaking training, but all of the squad get up every day to do it. Baekhyun’s right there with them, the pride in defending his country a roar in his chest, exactly where the badge of the military coat of arms on his uniform is. 

\---

Jongdae hits bullseye on his first shot. 

It’s shooting practice today, bricks in stacks in a line, but EXO isn’t issued with any guns – they’ve never needed to, with their weapons a part of themselves. They’d learnt to use bricks since the first time they were issued with target boards – Jongdae’s electricity had fizzled out of his fingertips and hit bullseye with such intensity that the target charred, and next to him Junmyeon’s target had fell backwards with a crash when his column of water hit it. Baekhyun had seared a clean aperture in his target and Chanyeol’s exploded in fire completely. The bricks also force greater resolution – fifty pushups for the squad when you hit more than one brick at once. Shapes their aim to place their weapons exactly where they need to maximize lethality. When ultimatum comes they may only get one chance, one millisecond to act.

Today they kill it. Each firing round knocks exactly four bricks off – one each for the four members with powers that concentrate at a single point, while behind them Minseok freezes the remnants of the tower of concrete Kyungsoo crumbles into a lattice before they tumble further. Sehun sweeps a small fleet of training drones to the ground. It’s almost like ants to a sledgehammer. 

No pushups are needed at the end of their afternoon training, and when they troop into the canteen after their warm-down run Jongdae’s got that winning feeling of confidence buoying his heart. It settles easy and warm in his gut - he could definitely get used to this. Baekhyun steals an extra apple today and tosses it at Jongdae grinning fit to burst. 

“Think those mutant invaders have anything on us?” Baekhyun asks with a twinkle in his eyes when they head off to shower. 

“We’re untouchable, man,” Chanyeol says, slinging his arms around Jongdae and Baekhyun’s shoulders, and Jongdae laughs because Chanyeol’s said it for him. 

\---

But perhaps they’re not, Baekhyun realizes the next day during weapons training. He has less than a second to react. 

He barely processes. The action that tenses his muscles is so instinctive, so reflexive that he doesn’t think he could have done anything else, even if he were faced with it over and over, for anyone else in Squad EXO. He throws himself over Jongin as the grenade explodes behind them. 

They land heavily, Jongin’s head hitting the ground and Baekhyun’s arm crushed beneath their combined weight, but a distance away from the grenade, half carried by Baekhyun’s momentum and the force from the explosion. His back to the grenade is searing with heat – Baekhyun rolls, still holding Jongin, until he sees rather than feels the small fire from the grenade, and disentangles himself from Jongin, his wrist aching from deep tissue.

“You okay?” Baekhyun can see that Jongin’s shaking, involuntary twitches from shock throughout his muscles, sitting up to see the fire that’s burgeoned from the accident in his hands. “Jongin?” 

Jongin nods after a while, as though the words travel through a vacuum to get to him. “Are you okay too, hyung?” 

Baekhyun nods, ignoring the deep ache that sputters in his wrist when he flexes it. “I – I’m sorry, I should have done it, I thought they were supposed to have given us a fake grenade –“ 

Jongin shakes his head, folding his fingers into his fists. “No, I should have checked –“ 

Baekhyun can feel arms around his torso pulling him up, Jongin to his feet too. His squad members. “You guys okay? What happened?” 

Junmyeon’s checking over both of them for anything, and Baekhyun can’t hide the wince that slips out when he accidentally tweaks Baekhyun’s wrist. “What –“ 

“Just a sprain or something.” Baekhyun grimaces. "Did you guys – were your grenades okay? Not live?” 

Everyone shakes their heads. “Not live. How the hell –“ 

Baekhyun’s pulse quickens. It was only supposed to be a drill, with dead grenades with no explosive material in them. In pairs, pull the pin, throw, and if the smoke releases in the X where your target is you’re clear. But the grenade he and Jongin had been given had been so close to taking one of their limbs off. It must have been a mistake, they’d been handed the wrong grenade off the shelf, they’ve – Baekhyun’s mind is racing with the possibilities when their sergeant comes over. 

“Any casualties?” The sergeant barks, looking at each of EXO in turn, then his gaze settling on Baekhyun. “Your wrist?” 

“Yes, sir,” Baekhyun responds loudly, his heart still thudding. “It’s minor, sir.” 

“Good,” the sergeant says, pointing towards the medical bay for Baekhyun to get some medical attention. The squad insists on half-carrying Baekhyun and Jongin to the medical bay, Baekhyun propped between Yixing and Junmyeon and Jongin’s arms on Jongdae and Minseok’s shoulders. Refuse to let Baekhyun carry his tray during dinner later. 

“I’ve got it,” Baekhyun says, his hand on the tray, but Jongdae narrows his eyes and shoulder-bumps Baekhyun’s grip off, an absolute gangster in the making. “ _I’ve_ got it,” Jongdae says, stacking his tray on top of Baekhyun’s and heads off quickly to their table. Sehun pats his newly bandaged wrist and ruffles his hair, then takes off before Baekhyun can put him in a headlock. 

“It’s just a sprain, guys,” Baekhyun says when Yixing makes a big show of helping Baekhyun tuck his chair in. “And it’s my wrist, not my legs, but, you know. You could give me a massage while you’re at it –“ 

“Say ahh,” Junmyeon fails spectacularly at hiding his grin as he holds a spoonful of food in front of Baekhyun, and soon the laughter from the whole table tunnels inside Baekhyun and makes itself home, so full and bursting that even the uneasiness that had earlier crawled under Baekhyun’s skin like an itch dissolves. 

But it’s not till several days later that Baekhyun discovers it hadn’t been a mistake. He’s fucking around with Minseok and Sehun in the bunks, playing some dumb game or other they’ve made up, Sehun’s arm smarting raw and red from the punishment he and Minseok had served, when his name is called. 

“Baekhyun,” their sergeant says from the door of their bunk, “Come with me.” 

It’s the first time anyone’s been singled out by name like this. The hairs on the back of Baekhyun’s neck tingle as he stands up, meeting his squad members’ eyes nervously, then follows their sergeant out of the door. It’s cold as hell in the corridors, Baekhyun realizes, without Jongin’s elbow digging into his side or Chanyeol draping himself all over Baekhyun in a bid to wring a piggyback ride out of him, even if Chanyeol’s a head taller. Something tells Baekhyun that this is about the grenade incident yesterday, but he’s baffled as to what. The itch beneath his skin is back.

Baekhyun watches as the scanner in the elevator scans his sergeant’s head, beeps green, then they press the lowest floor, the heart of camp most protected from any attack. They’ve all heard the stories of what’s on the lowest floor, Jongdae joking that it must be the armory, but none of them have ever been there. Baekhyun’s about to find out. 

The lowest floor is colder than the rest of camp. Baekhyun finds himself shivering as he walks past a series of metal doors, each heavier than the next, a small window of thick Plexiglass in the door the only opening each room has. The sergeant stops at the door at the end of a corridor. The two guards outside salute him as another scanner works. A loud beep, then Baekhyun steps into a world of red dots. 

The wall across from the huge console platform in the middle of the room is multiple screens, each with red dots on them in different configurations. Clustered, scattered, lined up – Baekhyun realizes it before the voice sounds behind him. 

It’s the Major himself. His voice still jolts a bit of fear in Baekhyun, booming from someone so commanding and forceful he could only have been of authority. 

“Baekhyun, is it?” 

Baekhyun jams his feet together and salutes. “Yes, sir.” The Major nods and takes a seat in the centre of the chairs behind the platform, swivels so he’s facing Baekhyun. 

“We’re waiting for some of the other captains, sir,” Baekhyun’s sergeant reports. Baekhyun’s heart arrests for a beat as his ears tingle at the word. This is –

“You must be curious.” The Major points at the screens. Baekhyun’s throat is dry. 

“Yes, sir,” he manages, fisting his hands behind his back so the trembling isn’t as apparent. 

“The tracking chips,” the Major says. “So we know where everyone is, to account for each person in the camp.” Like it was yesterday, Baekhyun remembers when the squad had just been assembled by the Major, lined up in a row to be implanted with a small computer chip just the size of Baekhyun’s thumb. The same words the sergeant had echoed in explanation then. “Each dot is a unique identifier. There’s your squad.” It’s enlarged on the centre screen immediately – Baekhyun can see their bunk number B293 in the corner of the screen. “Keeps the people where they should be, too – you’ve seen the scanners on the way down here.”

“Yes, sir,” Baekhyun responds, wondering if the Major means something else in that sentence. An errant question occurs in Baekhyun’s head – if they’re already tracked, then why would there be a need for so many cameras in camp? The second thing Baekhyun had noticed in camp, after the fact that sergeants and higher had chains through their lips to their collars as a mark of their rank, was that cameras were everywhere, from the canteen to their bunk. 

Like he’s read Baekhyun’s mind, the Major points to one outside of the room, just visible through the window in the door. “Those cameras in camp? Part of the initiative to keep you guys safe, too. We don’t take anything lightly here. Especially not the possibility of infiltration by an external threat. Like this.” 

The Major pulls up Baekhyun’s bunk again, except in security camera footage now, and Baekhyun can see – can hear – Minseok laughing about something, Yixing and Kyungsoo and Jongdae and Chanyeol discussing what they would have singled Baekhyun out for. Even with his heart thudding against his ribs Baekhyun can feel the itch under his skin, even now in the safest room in camp. Perhaps it’s because Baekhyun shudders to think about having the enemy in their midst, or perhaps it’s because there’s a nagging disquiet in the back of Baekhyun’s mind that he can’t figure out yet. 

The door behind them opens and more privates, ones that look just as terrified as Baekhyun, but just as determined for it not to show enter with their sergeants. They line up in front of the Major, watching as the Major surveys them, scrutinizing Baekhyun from head to toe so intently that Baekhyun feels six inches tall. He squares his shoulders and pushes his back ramrod-straight to compensate. 

“You’re gathered here today,” the Major booms when he finally, finally blinks and turns away from Baekhyun, “because you’ve shown a lot of courage and strength in your training. The Monster programme values that. So from today, you’re all captains of your squad.” Baekhyun turns to see his sergeant handing the Major a badge, the same badge Baekhyun’s seen on other captains in camp. The Major pins it on Baekhyun’s chest, just above the badge of the military coat of arms, and it’s only the piercing eyes of the Major that pulls Baekhyun out of this surrealism to muster the wherewithal to salute. 

“You’re now responsible for your members,” the Major booms, walking down the length of the line the captains make up, “and we want to see you demonstrating the same courage and strength you have so far. But above all,” the Major leans just slightly towards Baekhyun, finding Baekhyun’s eyes immediately like a dart to its target. “The first value that Monster lives by?” 

They all know it by heart. First thing after recruitment, even before the chips, was a drilling of Monster’s values and mission. _Loyalty._

\---

“Captain Baekhyun?” 

“Shut up,” Baekhyun mock punches Jongdae in the arm, but Jongdae hasn’t aced combat training for nothing and ducks even before Baekhyun lands it. It’s not like they haven’t already teased and _teased_ Baekhyun about it since the second he’d come back from his captaincy crowning, like Chanyeol likes to call it. 

“You’re going to get us out of the circuit drills right?” 

“Please, sir,” Sehun chimes in behind him, and Baekhyun laughs and tugs on his boots. “I told you, you punks. I don’t get any special powers. It’s just a badge and more of keeping you guys in line.” 

“But, sir,” Jongdae whines, unable to keep the grin off his face, and soon they’re rolling on the floor in a mess of a tickle- and punch-fight when their sergeant comes in. Baekhyun jumps up and yanks Jongdae to his feet, too. 

“Good morning, sir,” the squad shouts in unison, standing at attention. The sergeant eyes Chanyeol’s bare feet, Jongin’s top not tucked in, and Jongdae’s unlaced boots without a word, but he doesn’t have to; they know the drill. 

“Sorry, sir,” the squad shouts, then gets down to do their fifty pushups. It’s standard military protocol, but Jongdae also knows it’s a reminder that staying in line is a priority; orders are _orders_. A reminder of rank and boundaries. 

“Today you’re going to be starting something different,” the sergeant says when they’re done, arms crossed in front of him, chains rustling as he speaks. “In preparation for the field exercise next week.” 

It’s a test. Jongdae can tell at once. Three components in the field exercise – an undercover mission, where they slip an explosive device into an enemy camp, an obstacle exercise, where they fight their way through whatever obstacles a mutant group could pose, and a field combat exercise, where they will fight large groups of people at once. Putting all that they’ve learnt into practice in the field, so they can be ready for if, when the Monster programme has to kick into action. 

But the last exercise is something else. The sergeant doesn’t speak about the whys – he never has, but it’d always been apparent before. This one seems incongruent to the Monster programme’s very mission - the mutants they were supposed to be defending the country from did not use classic combat tactics like regular foot soldiers, nor would they approach like droves of civilians. Jongdae catches Baekhyun’s eye and finds the same hesitation, not quite unease but not yet suspicion mirrored in his best friend’s eyes. Jongdae looks up to catch the large plaque of the government’s military coat of arms on the wall just above the door in every bunk, bold like a shield, a reassurance, and reminds himself that they’ve enlisted to show bravery and loyalty for their country. Nothing less. 

\---

The first thing Baekhyun notices – something that will turn out to be a biggest fucking hint that this is not the exercise he’d thought it would be – is the camp they need to infiltrate. 

It’s just like their own, barracks and training fields, barbed wire pulsing with electricity keeping things out. Even several kilometres in the air away, in the deep of the night Baekhyun can see the military insignia on the buildings, the flags high from the roofs. That of the government army; the exact same back in Monster. The Hovercraft rotor fills up all of Baekhyun’s head as they near the camp, but it's precisely the fact that the camp is just like their own that gets Baekhyun’s gut tingling. 

It makes little sense to Baekhyun. There would be no test of their ability to stay undercover – this doesn’t involve them infiltrating enemy camp. He can’t shake a tiny feeling of unease – for some reason – at his observation that they would be dropped off just a kilometer away from the camp; all they have to do is walk up there and plant it. It’s an exercise built to ensure they complete their directive, not test their ability to. And nothing explains the military gas masks they have been asked to wear as part of their combat uniform. 

It’s dark in the back of the Hovercraft; Baekhyun can barely see in front of him. He uses his palm to light the window up, just to make sure he’s seeing the flags right. Jongdae catches his eye from across him – he’s noticed too. But it should be so innocuous. It’s just a fake bomb for their field exercise. Head within fifty metres of the camp, place your unit down, press start. Easy as pie. 

Until he turns and sees Kyungsoo staring at the side of the unit on his lap, frozen as though stunned. It takes Baekhyun several seconds to see it, with the light from his palm. There’s a small black window, enough to miss if you were careless and effectively blind. But now he can see the glint where his light catches glass – the window frames a tube coming from the inside of the unit. And when Kyungsoo hands it to him wordlessly, shaking it, Baekhyun can feel it too. There’s a force from inside the unit when he does, somewhat imperceptible in the rumbling of the Hovercraft that he wonders if he’s imagining it, that feels like the inertia of liquid.

It’s a physical punch to the heart. Baekhyun can’t find his breath. The rest have seen it as well; Junmyeon looks down at the other unit their squad has been assigned. The panic is wild in his eyes when he mouths _Liquid?_ to Baekhyun and it accelerates Baekhyun’s pulse, too. There’s a long silence – then Jongdae taps his gas mask. Baekhyun realizes, with a creeping wave like the hairs standing on the back of his neck, that it has to be an aerosol spray of something toxic. Not a fake bomb like they have been told. 

Baekhyun turns the unit around and finds it. The numbers are small and black, blinking but not counting down – until, Baekhyun realizes as he fights to swallow his heartbeat at the back of his throat, for when the aerosol spray activates when they press start. This is a mission to poison their ally camp. 

Jongdae pulls his gas mask off. “It’s not – it’s an attack on the government army –” 

Baekhyun cuts his eyes at Jongdae and shakes his head, his eyes nodding up at the front of the Hovercraft. He’s trembling – nothing makes sense, but through the haze of the confusion there’s one possibility that could only have been the truth of the puzzle that’s staring him in the face. His ears haven’t stopped ringing with the revelation – but there’s a bump, the Hovercraft screeches to a stop, Baekhyun’s breath is robbed with the fear that they’ve heard Jongdae. The back of the Hovercraft opens. 

“Ready, Squad EXO?” Their sergeant booms. There’re three other sergeants next to him; their chains gleam in the wan red light of the Hovercraft’s beacon. Baekhyun’s spine is tingling – the supervision they have been bound with is entirely disproportionate for this field exercise. 

“Yes, sir,” Baekhyun says with the loudest voice he can muster. He wonders if the tremble in his voice is noticeable. 

“Good,” the sergeant says and cricks his neck. “Team A, you’re with me. Over here.” Baekhyun can see that the sergeants are careful to bring up the rear, not lead the way. Catching Junmyeon’s eye, Baekhyun nods just slightly, hoping Junmyeon or the rest of Team B gets his message. They have no chance of not carrying this mission out, not setting this weapon off. Boldest in his consciousness, above all the confusion and panic, is the feeling – the comprehension that even more dangerous than activating the unit is them not following orders. He didn’t, couldn’t miss the rifles the sergeants were carrying. 

The jog to the perimeter of the camp feels like an eternity, Baekhyun’s gut churning with bile. Kyungsoo sets it down gingerly, gaze boring a hole in Baekhyun, but with a distinct feeling of being held at virtual gunpoint from the sergeants behind him, Baekhyun presses the big red button on the top. The quiet hiss that comes from inside the unit, the hiss that comes from the opening of a valve, is all he needs as confirmation. Kyungsoo hasn’t taken his eyes off Baekhyun, nor has Minseok, Jongdae. The knot in the back of Baekhyun’s throat is choking. This is the correct answer to his question then, under the fluorescent lights of the control room – Monster didn’t have cameras everywhere to protect their squads from danger or infiltration. The cameras were there to protect an ugly, filthy secret from getting out. Something that Baekhyun realises they're tangled within, pawns to further the game. 

“Good job, Team A,” their sergeant booms from behind. Baekhyun wonders if the smugness he hears is real. “Now get moving.” 

They break into a run back to the Hovercraft. Baekhyun can’t keep the knot in his throat down. They are silent all the way back, strapping themselves in as the sergeants watch, even when Team B arrives. Junmyeon nods slowly, very slowly when Baekhyun meets his eyes, but there’s an undercurrent of something else. Wariness. This time the three other sergeants climb into the back of the Hovercraft with them. 

Baekhyun forces himself to breathe, the silence in the cabin thunderous. None of EXO speak. One sergeant motions for them to take off their gas masks, and Baekhyun can see that Sehun’s hands are trembling when he passes his to Baekhyun. Baekhyun's mind is racing for something to land on, but the slow recognition that they are being, have been, will be used in a much more sinister plot is choking. 

Baekhyun’s barely noticed his knuckles are white with how hard he’s clasping his hands when the Hovercraft bumps again. First stop: Junmyeon, Yixing and Sehun with one of their sergeants. Their squad split up so they have no chance of communication. Dropped ten kilometres apart to fight their way through obstacles. Baekhyun has no idea what is in store for them and it’s terrifying. He meets Yixing’s eyes as the trio gets shuffled out of the Hovercraft and Baekhyun recognizes the one thing that’s awash in them, because he’s living it too. An identity crisis. But before he can do anything, a sergeant pulls the exit shut. 

Jongin and Chanyeol, then Kyungsoo and Minseok. Minseok’s sharp gaze lodges straight in Baekhyun’s chest like a dart before it’s only Baekhyun and Jongdae left to hold the weight of the searing truth. When Baekhyun turns to look at Jongdae, there’s something in his eyes that jolts Baekhyun into clarity. Adrenaline, the biological counter to panic. An energy that gets Baekhyun’s brain racing into the possibilities of what they can do to regroup. Hijack the Hovercraft. Knock the sergeant out. All with minute chances of succeeding, and there’s the trackers in each of them. Monster knows exactly where they are. 

They land in a flash, their sergeant lifting the back of the Hovercraft before Baekhyun finds his breath. Lost. It’s the true sense of the word that Baekhyun feels from the bone – without a sense of purpose or what the fuck he should be doing next. Not complying is not an option, but he needs answers from a system that will not be willing to give them up. A system that – Baekhyun has now no shred of doubt – will not hesitate to do what it needs to withhold the answers. A system that is not, no fucking way, intended to defend the human population and the government against mutants too powerful for their greed. A system that’s designed to kill them instead. 

“You have fifty minutes, soldiers,” their sergeant says. Baekhyun’s heartbeat is thudding so loudly near the back of his throat that his heart must spill out if he opens his mouth. Jongdae’s is too, almost audible next to him. 

They walk away from the sergeant in silence till Baekhyun gathers the wherewithal to decide. “We hijack the Hovercraft?” Baekhyun mutters under his breath. Jongdae looks over for a second, then nods. Counts three, two, one with his fingers in front of his stomach, but the second Baekhyun turns he realizes this is the wrong decision. He finds himself staring down the barrel of the sergeant’s rifle. 

He flinches, but the sergeant is on the ground in seconds. Baekhyun finds Jongdae’s eyes with gratitude – and he sees it. Jongdae’s move was reflexive, defensive. Perhaps it’s merely necessary; the presence of the gun from the sergeant is a clear sign that this is not the camp they have chosen to pledge their duty to. 

Jongdae picks up a tiny laptop from the Sergeant’s hand, rigid black metal that’s folded closed with a blinking red light in the corner. It’s locked. 

“Fingerprint?” Baekhyun’s voice catches and it comes out as barely more than a hoarse whisper. What’s most sobering is the understanding that the only thing they can do to protect themselves now is to fight their enemy. A piercing impetus that cuts through the haze of his confusion and doubt that, above everything, he needs to be responsible for his squad. 

Jongdae manages it after a couple of tries, his hand fumbling with the Sergeant’s lifeless one. It unfolds to display a monitor, red dots across a map tagged with numbers. Baekhyun recognizes his, Jongdae’s – the rest – immediately. Their soldier IDs. It’s a console for the chip system the Major had shown him in his captain initiation. Helps the camp find and bring a soldier to safety during war. Baekhyun can see the pairs stationary – Kyungsoo and Minseok, Jongin and Chanyeol. Baekhyun’s mind hurtles through the possibilities to contact them, but none of them are feasible. The pairs’ vantage points are too far away, and he has to contend with the possibility of the other Sergeants, the Major finding that they have taken their sergeant out. Minutes, seconds left, if any. There's a hatch cover in the upper right corner of the console, also fingerprint-locked. Jongdae squats down to try the sergeant’s finger again. 

“Baekhyun?” Jongdae’s voice – Baekhyun’s stomach falls clean through. It’s distilled fear, something that comes jarringly from the most fearless of the squad. And even though Baekhyun’s sure his heart will give with the slightest impact, he sees the button on the console that Jongdae's uncovered, Jongdae still on his knees on the ground like his knees had given underneath him, and the words in raised letters across it. 

_TERMINATE._

\---

Jongdae doesn’t know if he can take one more breath, for fear of his heart exploding. 

“In case we become a threat,” Baekhyun whispers. “To the Major.” Their lives under the mercy of a button, ready to become statistical casualties if they get in the way of this attack on the government military. Jongdae’s blood feels like both ice and fire. He’d wondered, many months ago when he’d been a fresh recruit, why there was a need for a tracker to be inserted right next to the start of the human spine, an area seemingly much too delicate for something so innocuous. This is why. 

It’s a thunderous pause before Baekhyun can manage anything to say. “How’s your aim?” Jongdae turns to look at Baekhyun – he’s well aware Jongdae is probably the best marksman in the squad – when it hits him. 

“Don’t move.” 

Jongdae braces. The glint of Baekhyun’s light is blinding, searing in the back of his neck, but his chip is out in a flash. A drop of his blood beading on the edge. The pain in his neck where Baekhyun made his laser incision barely registers amidst Jongdae’s numbness. 

“Just fry it,” Baekhyun turns, his bare neck flush in front of Jongdae like a target. Jongdae’s hands are trembling too hard for Baekhyun’s trust, but a gunshot far away, somewhere – chills his every stretch of bone. There’s no time. 

A deep breath, then – Baekhyun flinches a little when Jongdae’s lightning weds flesh, then metal, but they can tell immediately; Baekhyun’s dot disappears clean off the console monitor. Like he’d never been a part of Squad EXO in the first place. 

“Yours, too,” Baekhyun holds out the chip he’d cut out of Jongdae. This time there’s no hesitation. The chip falls to the floor as his dot and number cuts from the console. Just as a piercing alarm from the console starts wailing.

“Shit –” They turn together, tripping through the weeds in the grass, back towards the Hovercraft, choking from the thick organic air, Jongdae’s heart booming in his chest but he keeps going, almost blindly, somehow keeping with Baekhyun in a twine of arms and elbows, the question of what the alarm must mean so overwhelming nothing else will fit in his head, till it abruptly cuts –

“Fuck,” Baekhyun swears heavily and stops so suddenly Jongdae nearly trips. “Fuck –“ 

Jongdae can see it now, on the console. The red dots – each one a member of their squad, are now blinking, immobile – 

“They terminated them, fuck –“

The silence is deafening in Jongdae’s ears, but – “no,” he blurts, grabbing Baekhyun’s hand that’s shaking so hard the console falls to the floor. “No, they’re not dead. The dots are blinking, not gone.” 

Dare he believe it himself? Jongdae doesn’t know if it’s a plea dragged out of desperation or logical thought. Baekhyun’s face is contorted, won’t – can’t take his eyes off the console. Jongdae’s blood thunders through his every artery – so loudly that he realizes the choppy rotor of a Hovercraft seconds late. Baekhyun whips his head up. “They’re coming.” 

Then they run. Baekhyun hurls the console as far away as he can, grabs Jongdae’s arm and pulls, drags, yanks him so they’re tearing through the field, more animal flight instinct than anything else. Jongdae can’t tell if it’s adrenaline concentrate or his lightning in his veins – he just keeps running, holding on to his Captain, through the long grass that surrounds the camp into a swathe of forest, weaving through trees till Baekhyun tugs him down, crouching, behind a trunk. 

“We can’t run too far, it’ll look suspicious. But we have some time to think of a plan before they find us too.” 

Jongdae barely has time to catch his breath. “What do you think they’ve done to the squad?” 

Baekhyun shakes his head. “They’re moving them. In Hovercrafts or something. They knocked them out and are moving them – somewhere.” It comes out as a whisper, but it sounds almost like a prayer to Jongdae. It barely keeps Jongdae’s heart in his chest. Through the trees, the silhouette of a Hovercraft tears an arc in the dawn sky. 

“Southwest.” Jongdae says. _Back to camp._

Baekhyun shakes his head. “They won’t kill them now, not if they’ve brought them back. Incapacitated them, I don’t know. Keep them trapped somewhere. We need a distraction or something to get them out.”

Jongdae’s mouth is dry. It’s a plausible scenario – would be unthinkable, insane just an hour ago, but plausible. Terrifyingly so. 

“But this system is the catch. One button somewhere and the rest get killed, probably, this time. Don’t think we’re worth so many second chances.” 

“No.” Baekhyun’s eyes are hard, focused. “They won’t kill us. They would have by now -” 

“The terminate button -”

Baekhyun shakes his head again, violently and it's then that Jongdae sees the sharp line of Baekhyun’s jaw in his cheek. “It’s an emergency button. Only to be used in the worst case possible. It was under the cover.”

Jongdae swallows. The double security for the button must necessitate use in only dire circumstances, and EXO’s dots had been blinking, too. He just can't find a reason why Monster wouldn't just kill them. 

Like he’s read his mind, Baekhyun continues. “We’re still valuable to them somehow. The Major needs us to complete his attack? Camp has five thousand men. The government army has, what, a half a million? He can’t take them all out, even with his biological warfare. He needs us to finish his plan – we can take on a hundred people at once.” Jongdae can hear the plea that comes with desperation in Baekhyun’s voice, even if this theory makes sense.

“So, stalemate,” Jongdae says. “We’re stuck? Blast our way back in and get locked up in camp too till they figure out how to use our powers?” 

“Yeah,” Baekhyun breathes. “Except we destroy the chip system first.”

“How the fuck, Captain.” Jongdae hopes the last word comes out sarcastic enough. 

“I can blow it up,” Baekhyun’s eyes are hard, steely as his voice has grown. “The armory has enough shit, the Major brought me in there once. When I was made squad leader.” 

“And you’ll just stroll in there and casually nick an explosive from a shelf, and then casually chuck it in the control centre? Do you think they won’t do the exact same to you when we go back in there?” 

“So I’ll need to stay behind enemy lines to get into the armory.” Baekhyun’s quiet for a long moment. “You know what, electrocute me.”

Jongdae holds Baekhyun’s eyes till he realizes Baekhyun is serious. “You’re fucking insane.” 

“I’m serious, Jongdae. I tell the Major you guys came up with an incredible conspiracy theory and tried to cut your chips and mine out. We try killing each other because I won’t renege on my loyalty to the Major, I get myself back as squad leader – or at least not locked up – then figure out how to blow the chip system up. What else is there? We can’t blast our way back in, that’s suicide. They’re not gonna let the rest of the squad blast their way out. They’re probably unconscious somewhere deep in camp. What else?” 

“We kill the Major –“

“That’s not going to happen. You know it. What else?”

Jongdae’s mind is racing, but with the numerous possibilities that Baekhyun, him, all of them will die in this plan. No alternatives. 

“Look, just do it. When they take you in, tell the rest I refused to believe you. The cameras –“ 

“It’s – don’t you see all the ways we could die? You get shot immediately because they don’t believe you? They kill us all because we’re livewires in their crazy plot? We –”

“There’s no time, Jongdae, they’re coming. Any moment now.” Baekhyun’s breathless. “I’ll take a minute chance over nothing – which will be the case when we both get caught.” 

“It’s –“ Jongdae stops when he hears the peppering of bullets a distance away. Where the console is. “They’re not going to believe me when I say you’re still with the Major.” 

“So I have to hurt you too,” Baekhyun grimaces. “The clincher. Speaks volumes about the lengths I will go to to protect the Major, right?” 

It’s not even the thought of having Baekhyun’s laser through his flesh that gets Jongdae’s hairs standing on end. “So basically you want me to betray you instead.” 

“Something like that. I’m ready.” Baekhyun closes his eyes. “Try not to make it hurt too much, okay?” There’s a hint of a smile in Baekhyun’s lips that breaks Jongdae’s heart and fires it up with anger at the same time. 

“You noble bastard,” Jongdae says angrily. He is, white hot – angry that they have been manipulated to be a pawn in Monster’s game, that Baekhyun suggested a plan that has only five million ways to go wrong, that he can think of no other alternative besides seeing his best friend and captain into the jaws of hell. 

“I take the captain thing pretty seriously,” Baekhyun half-jokes, but his eyes are serious. “I’m getting the better end of the deal, you know. You guys are going to be behind bars or something and probably tortured. Monster’s just going to save my fucking life after you fry me to a crisp.” 

“If they believe you,” Jongdae points out. Their lives now reduced to a gamble. His electricity crackles at his fingertips – anger never fails to get his circuit started. 

“On the count of three?” Baekhyun says, the laser beam from his palm boring sharp into the ground. 

“We –“ But it’s too late for an alternative. Jongdae can hear the whirr of a Hovercraft nearing. 

“Three, two, one –“ 

It happens too fast. He directs a bolt at Baekhyun’s shoulder, careful to head for the other side of Baekhyun’s chest away from his heart, then a second as a white-hot slash slices a short arc in his stomach – all of a sudden it feels warm and slippery, there’s a gunshot, then Jongdae feels what must be a bullet in his thigh and everything goes black. 

\---

Baekhyun wakes to in a Hovercraft. He sits up so fast his vision pops white, the bed he’s strapped to rattling. Jongdae is next to him out cold. Baekhyun feels a tightness in his chest watching Jongdae bleed out from the slash he’d made in his stomach, a gunshot in his thigh, but Monster had bothered to bandage his wounds. He’d guessed right; they _were_ still valuable. A trump card in case. 

There’s no window in the Hovercraft where they are, so Baekhyun can’t tell how far they are on the way back to camp. He has at most a couple minutes to think about how the hell he convinces the Major that he’s still a part of – an allegiant to – Monster, even as every fibre of his being is on fire. The weight of the fact that if he fails, he and his eight squad members die hangs somewhere in his throat. It’s not till a while later, his mind blank and raucous at the same time, that he releases the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. His hands are still trembling – whether from the ruins of his identity or Jongdae’s lightning he can’t tell. Probably both. Jongdae had protected him well – a bolt just strong enough to knock out and then another to instantaneously restart his biological wiring, but leave the telltale signs of electrocution in his nerves that Monster will be sure to check. 

Twenty, thirty seconds now. Baekhyun can feel the Hovercraft dive forward in its descent. There’s no doubt there’s fear churning in his gut, souring his throat and caging his heart. But beneath the shock of it all, there’s something bolder charging through his veins - he’s livid. Livid that Monster had given him and his members no choice, thrown them into a cell to fight with their damn lives out of. Desperation claws animal instinct out of a human, and right now he’s a beast pushed to the edge. Left with no alternative but to draw blood. 

It spills out of Baekhyun even before he can think. If believing the story he will tell is his only survival option for his squad, then his consciousness has no option but to swallow it. “They went crazy,” Baekhyun breathes when he’s rolled out of the Hovercraft and the Major approaches his bed. “Sir – I couldn’t stop them –“ 

“Baekhyun, isn’t it,” The Major booms, his face showing no sign of emotion. Up close it chills Baekhyun – because he can recognize this lack of emotion for what it is. 

“Yes, sir,” Baekhyun rasps, “I tried, the squad – they thought the unit was something else, Jongdae panicked and tried to run back to the Hovercraft but the sergeant stopped him – it was an accident – and then Jongdae saw the console and asked me to cut his chip out, said if I was right, the chip shouldn’t matter, right? So I did, just to show him –“ 

“We saw that,” the Major says, his voice unnervingly calm, like speaking to a dim child. The creep of the hairs behind the back of Baekhyun’s neck starts again. “And then you let him take out your chip.” 

“No, sir – he tried to force it out of me – I lost consciousness when he did and he dragged me, into the woods, until I woke and fought him –“ 

The Major bends over and catches Baekhyun’s eyes, his pulse racing a mile a minute and he can’t, nor does he want to for fear of appearing self-conscious, waver from holding the Major’s gaze that’s frighteningly magnetic, a black hole that won’t relinquish till Baekhyun’s swallowed whole. He’s afraid another word will blow his igniting heart out. There’s nothing else in the space around Baekhyun besides the devastating, crushing grip the Major has on him, without even laying a single finger. But he won’t, over his fucking dead body, be the first to blink. 

Then the Major straightens, barks, “clean him up.” Casts a glance almost casual over Jongdae’s still limp body – so casual that Baekhyun’s nerves shred themselves inside out –

“Bring that one in.” 

\---

When Jongdae wakes his wrist is free. Still in the white same room, the same carts and tubes. Nurses tending to the rest of Squad EXO in the other beds. Jongdae sits up with a motherfucker of a headache and the red glint of the ubiquitous security cameras in Monster is the first thing that catches his eye. 

“Your head will hurt,” one nurse comes over. “But the painkillers will ease it, so keep this tube in.” She pats it. Jongdae cricks his neck and immediately feels the hard chip back in, right at the start of his spine. Almost like Baekhyun had never cut it out of himself, like he hadn’t had his whole world turn itself inside out just a couple hours earlier, like he was still the good private, soldier, comrade Monster had led him to believe he was. 

_Painkillers._ He feels no pain, but as the hairs on the back of his neck feather up he feels the unsettling awareness that the electricity that _is_ his veins is starkly absent, too. There’s a sense in his gut, somehow, that this is the reason why the cuffs are off. He nods at the nurse and looks across at Minseok, Kyungsoo, Junmyeon, Yixing, Chanyeol. Sehun and Jongin still unconscious. None of them say anything. The coldness in the air of the room seems a warning enough. 

When the nurses finally leave the room, Jongdae finds the tube in his arm has been sewn in. The sutures are tight and deep – maximum trauma if the tube is ripped out. Jongdae reaches over to feel in the back of Minseok’s neck. Minseok meets his eyes as his finger finds the edge of metal, holding a sea of questions that Jongdae cannot answer. 

“Are yours gone, too?” Minseok has his fist balled, the way he does to pull the frost out of his blood to attack. There’s no ice on his knuckles, no fire in Chanyeol’s palm either. Junmyeon has air in his palm where water should be. 

“It has to be the painkillers,” Kyungsoo says it just as the realization hits Jongdae. There’s a numbness where the spark and crackle through his blood would have been. “Permanent?” 

“I don’t know,” Jongdae shakes his head. 

“It can’t be permanent,” Junmyeon says. “They wouldn’t sew it to our flesh if it were. They need it in there, so it has to be only suppressing our powers.” 

Jongdae rifles around the cart next to his bed, but it’s futile. They wouldn’t have been so careless to leave tools of any kind to cut the tube, sew wounds shut. No need for cuffs; this is a virtual shackle anyway. 

Across him Kyungsoo counts the members – Jongdae braces himself for the drop. “Wait. Baekhyun?” 

It takes a different kind of strength to look a friend in the eye and lie, Jongdae finds. Something that he’s not quite sure he can do at this moment. He drops his eyes to his lap. “He didn’t believe it.” 

“He didn’t believe it?” Chanyeol echoes, incredulity rife in his eyes, his voice. 

“He said he would kill the mutants that were trying to destroy our country or die trying,” Jongdae says, remembering the tiniest smile playing on Baekhyun’s lips in the forest, the light from between the leaves spotting his face. It’s nearly cruel to repeat it. 

Kyungsoo doesn’t believe Jongdae’s story for a second; how could he, when Jongdae’s recounting the exact opposite of what he’s lived? Kyungsoo doesn’t say anything. 

“I suggested to hijack the Hovercraft and electrocuted the sergeant with us before he could say anything. Then I saw the sergeant’s console. The chips in the back of your neck? That’s how they took you guys out remotely.” 

“The trackers?” Everyone touches the back of their neck. A hush falls over the room. Jongdae nods. 

“The console shows our positions and movements on a map, but there’s also a button that reads terminate. They’re hooked up to all our lives through a button. Baekhyun wouldn’t believe they would wire us up to kill us, so I asked him to cut my chip out to prove it. I electrocuted it. My tracker disappeared off the console. And then I tried to electrocute his chip, too, but he fought me –“ 

It’s only when Minseok reaches over to put a hand on his trembling ones that Jongdae realizes his cheeks are wet. Like he’s in that field all over again, watching, feeling his Captain fight for his squad. 

“But that’s not Baekhyun,” Junmyeon says quietly. And how could it be? Perhaps Monster will believe it, but they aren’t the ones that have trained alongside Baekhyun for several years, now. They haven’t watched Baekhyun sneak into the kitchen to steal dinner for his squad under punishment. Had Baekhyun cheering you on from behind in a storm even though he’d finished his mandatory fifty laps, because he wanted to bring up the rear. Trembled as Baekhyun threw his body over you to shield you from a practice grenade. 

“He sliced my guts open because I fried his chip,” Jongdae reminds them quietly, lifting his hospital gown so they can see the scar. _The clincher. Look the part, will you?_ That Baekhyun’s cut in his stomach is now a scar is enough for Jongdae to believe that Baekhyun had been correct. That Monster’s still waiting to use them. The room is pin-drop quiet, taking in the incomprehensible, waiting for Jongdae to finish. 

“They didn’t kill us,” Jongdae takes a deep breath, “so they still need us. We’re still valuable somehow. The aerosol unit was a mission to poison the enemy camp – so Monster is not the mutant defence programme we’ve been told. We’re just here to take the government army out. W – I think the Major is staging a coup of the government, building a small army with us here in Monster to do it.” Jongdae wonders if the millisecond slip of his concentration, his voice after loudly overcompensating is not stark. 

“So,” Chanyeol says, “we’re just weapons for the taking?” 

Jongdae nods, and hopes to God the shock that comes with a revelation pulls him and Baekhyun’s story over the edge. 

\---

The Major doesn’t believe Baekhyun. 

Not entirely, at least. He’s left in the medical bay after the doctors go through so many tests Baekhyun lost track halfway, with no further instructions or information. But he’s not with the rest of the squad, not unconscious, and not trapped. It’s more than he could have hoped for. 

Three things he needs to do: get in the armory, kill the chip system in the control room, then regroup with the rest of the squad and get the hell out of here. More than three ways he could die. 

So he sits up and cracks his knuckles, ready to give Monster hell. Much, much stronger than his instinct for survival is the overwhelming sense of responsibility, of belonging to this squad he calls family; there’s no other possibility or alternative he had entertained. Their identities – and his – is now up to him and him only, and he only has a small window of time to do it. 

He sees it almost immediately. The camera in the corner of his room, a black eye staring him in the face. Daring him to do something. Baekhyun’s thinking about the blind spots already – he can’t disable the camera this early in his plan. His bed is high enough to shield a crouching figure next to it. There’s a sergeant standing outside his room. Perfect. 

“Hey,” Baekhyun shouts loudly, waving his hands to get the attention of the sergeant outside. “Can you help me, please –“ 

The sergeant frowns when he catches sight of Baekhyun, hesitates, but heads in. “What do you want.” 

“I need to go to the bathroom, please, my legs – I can’t –“ Baekhyun scans the sergeant as quickly as he can. One handgun in his right holster – he’ll have to pin his right arm down first. Timing is key, their squad sergeant had told them early in their combat training. He’ll need to do it as fast as possible. 

The sergeant grunts, but fits his arm around Baekhyun and under his armpit to help lift Baekhyun off the bed, and it’s now or never. Baekhyun stands and charges a shoulder into the sergeant’s nose, making sure to keep his back to the camera so it looks like they’ve tripped, and he places his full body weight on the sergeant when they fall, grinding the sergeant’s right hand under his knee and grabbing the sergeant’s neck, his grip tight and choking. Baekhyun keeps his body low, below the edge of the bed. A quick flick of Baekyun’s hand – the cut he’s made in the sergeant’s neck sputters with red, but the time it takes for the sergeant to fight, to thrash feels infinite, then it’s over. Baekhyun nearly rips his hospital gown off with the haste he’s in to change into the sergeant’s uniform. How long has it been now? Every second Baekhyun takes is a second too long to orchestrate the change in clothing while keeping hidden next to the bed. There’s a booming, ticking bomb in Baekhyun’s head. He forces himself to stand even before he’s had time to put the shoes on, pulling the sergeant’s limp body in his hospital gown up towards the bathroom. He’s not done yet – still needs a fake identity for the rest of his plan. 

There’s a second camera in the bathroom. Baekhyun props the sergeant up against the sink, keeping his frame square so he covers the sergeant from the camera, and the chip in the back of his neck is out in a flash. Baekhyun holds it under his tongue and has to force the bile back down when he tastes the blood, metallic and sharp. Then he tears the chains off the sergeant’s face. The attachment rings pierce Baekhyun’s flesh, so much that he has to clench his jaw shut to fight the urge to pull them off. 

A pause to find his own pulse and straighten his new uniform, then Baekhyun walks out, still holding the sergeant, to place the sergeant in the bed where he had been – where he should be. He checks that the rest of his uniform is in place, pulls the sheets up to the sergeant’s chin so the cut in his neck is not apparent, a deep breath and Baekhyun walks out as a sergeant in Monster. 

\---

Perhaps the most convincing clincher comes in Baekhyun himself. The next time they see him – it feels like years to Jongdae, even though it’s only been half a day at most – Baekhyun is almost unrecognizable. 

Almost. 

The chains Baekhyun has on his face are impossible to miss. His eyes are sharp and dark, blazing with a resolve that Jongdae recognizes. It’s the exact same look Baekhyun had in the forest, asking Jongdae to electrocute him. The resolve that’s more than just a fight against the system, rather, a fight to win it. No alternative besides succeeding, because Baekhyun won’t let an alternative happen. 

A hush falls over the room when Baekhyun passes their room window. Baekhyun finds Jongdae’s eyes, his eyes only, and in the second before Baekhyun turns back and slips out of the frame of the window, Jongdae somehow sees everything Baekhyun wants to say. 

That they have hours, minutes, seconds – how long is anyone’s guess – of warning before Baekhyun will blow the control room up. It’s all he’s been waiting for in the confines of this room. Hashing and rehashing the ways to break out of this room with the rest of the squad. They’d discovered one thing very quickly – that ripping the tube out of their arms set off an alarm that rippled through the labs they were in and restarted their chips. Jongdae woke with the tubes back in. The nurse had told him they’d lost a lot of blood, so they must not do that again. 

“So our captain’s gotten a promotion.” Chanyeol says his voice somewhere between bitterness and disbelief. The hush in the room has distilled to something else now, a quiet sense of disgust that comes with betrayal. Jongdae can’t choke anything past the lump in his throat. He’s not sure if it should be relief or trepidation that he should be feeling. 

It’s a game of strategy now. If they try breaking out before Baekhyun cuts the system, they could be a distraction to help protect Baekhyun, but their odds of getting restarted are high. But Jongdae needs to say something. The anger in the room smells ugly and dangerous. 

“Here’s a plan,” Jongdae says, brain tripping a mile a minute to think about the ways he can stall for time. “We cut our chips out, then make a run for it.” It’s the simplest, probably most foolish plan, but what else do they have? 

“We won’t have our powers,” Jongin points out. His eyes are electric, the dark of a night sky that’s charged with static before a storm. “Can’t fight our way out.” 

Jongdae nods. “But at least we won’t get restarted. Buys us some time.” 

“They’ll just restart us the second we try.” Sehun says quietly. 

Jongdae wills Baekhyun in his head to hurry. “Nothing they can do to us that they haven’t already.” 

A beat, then EXO get to their feet. It’s implicit, their common understanding for survival – that they need something to cut out their chips with. Jongdae already knew it would be a futile search, because Monster was never going to take any chances, but at least they’re prepped for the possibility of breaking out and it stalls for time. Their muscles charged and ready for flight, to fight. As much of a mix of individuals EXO are, they've got a bit of a mongrel nature, the bit that never lets them give themselves up, that always reminds Jongdae how proud he is to be in this team. At the precipice of their breakout, or perhaps catastrophe, Jongdae’s racing heartbeat floods his entire being. 

It’s not until Yixing holds up a pair of blunt forceps that it happens, ironically. “This?” Yixing asks, then the room erupts with a screech. 

\---

It’s a question of how fast Monster can react when he kills the cameras. Baekhyun had figured, in the hours waiting for the doctors to finish the tests on him, that disabling the camera system would be one of his steps. He remembers the exact look of the corridor to the control room, cameras and lasers pointed in every direction. Monster doesn’t take any chances. But the power generators that run the camp are outside of the main building, a detour to the control room. Cutting the power for the cameras would help in his getting in the armory, but Baekhyun doesn’t know how long Monster will take to fix the lack of power. He decides to secure his weaponry first. 

The armory is just as Baekhyun remembers, deep in the maze of camp, two sentinels at the door. The chip scan keeping the unnecessary out. There’s a pregnant pause during the scanning – one where Baekhyun’s throat chokes up in the paralyzing fear that it detects his original chip as well, the one in the back of his neck that he couldn’t have cut out, but – the door unlocks. The sentinel guards salute Baekhyun as he enters. Baekhyun swallows the raw taste of panic. 

Dangerous barely covers the extent of damage the armory could do. There are cameras in the room, too – it’s only now that Baekhyun understands how much the Major has to hide, if he can’t trust even his closest aides – so he keeps his face behind the racks and moves fast. Countdown timers for him are everywhere – till EXO do something desperate that makes the Major decide they’re not worth the trouble, till Monster finds out it’s not him in his medical bay room, till someone sees his unfamiliar face in the armory. 

There’s a row of black cases near the end of the room. Baekhyun remembers them from very long ago, when he was on his captain initiation tour. The exact feeling of exclusiveness, privilege that he had been led to feel. Just holding one of these explosive devices in his hand, listening to the sergeant speak about how one would be enough to decimate a big room, so be very careful with it. It’s heavy, but small enough to fit in Baekhyun’s palm. Easier to make a break for it with. Slipping it into his pocket, he touches the pin at the side, the one that he will need to pull when the time comes. Memorises its position with his finger, just in case. 

The cameras are next. He’ll have to do it with the least intrusion possible to give himself enough of a head start. Leaving a trace by cutting it with his light is out of the question. He’ll need to make it look like an electrical trip. Baekhyun walks as fast as he can, keeping his head high, hoping to God no one recognizes his face. Every figure that appears around a corner drums his heartbeat up, thumping so loud against his neck that he’s sure it must be audible. The case weighs his pocket down, a secret that he fears is too heavy to keep. Every step is excruciating, but he forces his legs to keep going. 

Until his heart arrests when he sees them. Baekhyun nearly stops in his tracks, mere muscle momentum keeping his legs moving. He hadn’t had the time or headspace to figure out where his members were – could only have kept them in the back of his mind like a prayer. This is the now to give a warning. 

As though magnetic, the way lightning catches the ground in a storm, Baekhyun finds Jongdae’s eyes immediately. There’s nothing he can say like this, through a window, with seconds to spare, but – Jongdae can see it. There’s an understanding in his eyes that Baekhyun recognizes, something that’s almost a shot of relief. It jolts Baekhyun’s muscles at the same time, reminding him to keep going. Finish it. 

It’s almost dusk when Baekhyun reaches an exit to the building. He’s thankful for the darkness to shield his face, the cool air to recharge his lungs. Readies a supernova in the heart of his fist. Taking cover around the edge of the power generator building, Baekhyun reaches around to attack; the guards at the gate crumple. There’s no time to hide their bodies. He slips in. 

It takes a while, his heartbeat still jackrabbitting at the back of his throat and his sweat stinging his eyes so he can barely see, but he finds it. The main switch to kill the power for the camera system. Baekhyun has to remind himself to take a second to breathe – another countdown timer starts the second he turns this off. He places a shaking finger on the switch, and… go. 

A piercing screech explodes through the camp, an alarm so deafening and insistent it throbs through Baekhyun’s entire being. It still shocks Baekhyun into panic, even though hearing it now he’s intensely aware that he should have expected this to happen, that he shouldn’t have underestimated Monster. His plan of pulling it off surreptitiously feels almost juvenile, foolish. Might as well destroy the system as thoroughly as he can now, buy him some more time. His light slashes through the switch unit, hot and searing that it chars upon impact. 

Then he runs, something like the cognizance to need to compensate charging his muscles, keeping his light ready in his fist, slipping into the building, tearing through the corridors. It’s a flurry of confusion inside; privates leaving their bunks, captains running down the length of the hallways. The alarm drills into Baekhyun’s skull and stays there like a throbbing cancer. Baekhyun pushes through clumps of fresh recruits, drives straight into the stairwell and down the stairs to the lowest basement, choking on the light air inside camp, every muscle in his body screaming for him to stop. He thrusts the chip under his tongue at the scanner so the doors slide open heavily and keeps going, past door after door even though his heart feels like it’s on the brink of stopping, but still he makes sure not to stop, winding the white corridors until he’s sure the next turn empties into the corridor leading up to the control room. The confused activity on the floor is a silver lining – no one seems to stop to ask. Baekhyun can hear running footsteps ahead of him; the guards from the control room. Split-second warning before – Baekhyun slashes his hand in the air, the guards fall to the floor just as they round the corner Baekhyun’s behind, but he can’t stop to think or do anything else; six, seven steps halfway through the corridor so he’s close enough to aim straight, then he blows a hole in the window in the heavy door, yanks the pin in the case from his pocket and pitches the case through the window. 

Then he runs – takes a couple heartbeats, turns the corner, before the force of the explosion hurls him bodily into a wall. 

\---

This is it. 

The room jumps from the alarm – the forceps clatter to the floor, the squad watches as the labs through the window of the room break into a mess of confusion, the nurses running out to look. Jongdae’s never heard anything like it before. It stops his heart for a second; Baekhyun can’t have blown the system up yet, which could mean he’s been discovered. His story thrown out. His identity – no. It’s a camp-wide alarm; necessitates something serious enough, like a security breach. Jongdae’s willing to bet that Monster would never voluntarily announce the story of people who’ve uncovered their secret. So Baekhyun’s safe for now. 

The next thing that Jongdae notices is the termination of the red lights from the corners of the ceiling. It’s stark – he’d spent every hour watching, realizing that the cameras were how their moves were being studied, wondering if they should destroy them somehow. Smash a fist into them to shatter the lens; their raw energy would be enough to compensate for their lack of powers. It occurs to him now, like a bolt of lightning that illuminates the sky, that this is the reason for the alarm. Baekhyun’s got something to do with it, too. But the opportunity’s staring him in the face now, handed to him by Baekhyun, glittering as the glass of the camera catches the light in the room. It feels like every stretch of nerve in his body is supercharged – not because they have their powers back, with the tube still sewn into his arm – but with adrenaline. It’s now or never. 

“Guys,” Jongdae says loudly, pointing to the camera. Kyungsoo’s noticed too, exchanging glances with him, and he wonders if Kyungsoo can read it all, his desperation, his worry for Baekhyun, but most of all his cognizance that this is probably the only chance they have to break out. Behind the squad, through the window, Jongdae can see no nurses and wonders if they have emptied the building. 

“Now,” Kyungsoo says, then rips the tube out of his arm. 

EXO breaks into action. The rest yank their tubes as well, the hangers for the bags of painkillers skittering against the bed railings, and Kyungsoo is already at the door, his arm streaked with blood. The door opens without resistance, and every second of distance they gain without the familiar tingle at the back of their necks before their chips are restarted – down the corridors, past a labyrinth of lab doors, each one steely and cold as the next – is a burst of confidence. Monster hasn’t noticed their breakout, or is distracted, probably in their haste to reset the camera system. Jongdae nearly runs into a nurse when he turns a corner – his heart jerks into numbness, reflexively trying to drag his lightning to the tip of his fingers, but it’s not there; they must need some time to work the painkillers out of their systems – when Chanyeol rams an elbow in the nurse’s face from behind Jongdae and tugs him into swing. 

Jongdae runs. The squad charges into a narrow corridor, ramming a door open with sheer anger and tenacity. Jongdae can’t tell where their lead is headed, this far back rounding up the rear, but it’s instinctive, the trust he has in his members, and the door’s only just closing behind him when he _feels_ , down to the marrow of his bones, the explosion. It throws him forward into Sehun, his ears ringing from the impact or his own horror he does not know, because if this is the force of the detonation Baekhyun has orchestrated then his Captain may well be dead. Jongdae’s knees buckle beneath him. He can’t move. 

“Hyung!” Sehun’s extricating himself, pulling Jongdae up, but Jongdae’s hand is so slippery with the blood from his arm wound that Sehun has to wind his arm around Jongdae’s body, lodge his hand firmly under Jongdae’s armpit. “Are you okay?” 

It’s only someone’s hands on his back – Junmyeon, yelling something Jongdae can’t hear – and now Yixing on his other side, Sehun that keep his body in motion, half dragging him along, nearly slipping over the floor slick with blood and sweat. His eardrums _don’t_ feel anything, like they’ve been completely blown out.

They spill into a main corridor where it’s chaos, warm bodies pushing in all directions, tripping over each other, soldiers pouring out of their bunks and sergeants and captains trying to marshal their troops, but they keep going, dragging and pulling Jongdae through the sheer crowd, till somehow Jongdae feels the knifing night wind against his wet cheeks and it shakes him into lucidity. He’s torn, ripped apart by whether to head back and find Baekhyun, or what’s left of Baekhyun, if it’s too late – but Jongdae can’t tolerate that possibility, not even in the confines of his mind. It’s like the painkillers are right back in his system. He has ice for veins. 

There’s no way to make a decision. Jongdae makes to turn back, against the flow of EXO’s movement, but Sehun and Yixing’s arms around his torso, Junmyeon’s hands on his back, his weak whispers of _Baekhyun_ like a plea, a prayer. They keep moving. It’s too much all at once. 

And then, Jongdae realizes with acute shock as they reach the perimeter of camp where the electric fence is, that it’s too late when a gunshot rings out over the shrillness of the alarm. Jongdae looks up as Kyungsoo falls to the ground. A beat where EXO are stunned into immobility. 

It’s raw emotion that breaks them. They charge forward, into the riot squad safeguarding the exit out of camp, the squad that fired the bullet that’s found its way into Kyungsoo’s calf, Jongdae sees when he falls to his knees to assess the damage. Yixing’s trying his hardest to concentrate his power, something, anything in his palm so he can heal the raw, bloody wound, so hard that it seems like he’s trying to will the bullet out, his knuckles white and shaking. It doesn’t happen. Jongdae can only hold his ripped sleeve to Kyungsoo’s calf to try and stop the bleeding. Chaos erupts around him. 

Chanyeol’s kicking, raining futile punches on the shields of the riot squad, then gets kneed in the back so he too falls to the floor. Jongin’s thrown himself bodily against the frontmost row and Minseok charges, right behind him, but it’s an impossible fight against the armor and weapons and guns the riot squad has. They feel nothing underneath their protective gear, no pain or conscience or mercy, twisting Junmyeon’s arm behind his back, holding a prone Sehun from his wrists, dragging him, mashing their boots into Jongin’s neck. Jongdae’s fighting a couple of faceless soldiers, trying to protect Kyungsoo’s pained body and Yixing’s helpless one, feeling the breath get knocked out of him with the batons the riot squad carries. His elbow buckles upon impact with their shields. Then, with no warning at all, the tear gas hisses around them. 

They’re incapacitated so immediately, so easily that the pain is worse. Jongdae can’t see through the haze of tears in his eyes, but even more cutting is the crushing recognition that this is it. Blood is all over his fingers, his and Kyungsoo’s and Yixing’s and Sehun’s, Kyungsoo writhing with pain in front of him. Their bodies ants to Monster’s Goliath. 

His members are in cuffs when the gas clears. Jongdae’s dragged roughly too, his head hitting the ground hard, the handcuffs crashing so hard on his wrists his bones tingle. A gun to his head. 

An eternity passes as Jongdae watches, on his knees, Kyungsoo on the ground next to him, his members dragged, shoved next to him. The riot squad keeping their guns trained on them, waiting for a signal from command. Two figures surveying their bounty from the side. An smooth expanse of opaque Plexiglass over their faces, shielded behind the strong helmet of the riot squad’s gear. One of them – a sergeant, from the coat of arms over his chest – gives his order to a captain and limps backwards. The captain barks his orders to the squad. Jongdae is thrown, over Kyungsoo, over Chanyeol, over Jongin, into the back of a military van. 

This is it. Their run is over. 

\---

The searing pain is, ironically, the only thing that keeps Baekhyun conscious, keeps his biological survival mechanism fired, keeps the understanding that he has to get the fuck out of here before Monster makes their way down to this floor bold in his mind. He has to fight himself to get up. Drag himself somehow into an elevator and press, his fingers missing several times, for the ground floor. Prop himself up with his arms on the railings in the elevator and choke, through the pain, fight to get some air in his lungs that feel ruptured. The pain is white-hot, beyond anything that Baekhyun’s felt, agonizing in his side that it hurts so much just to breathe, hurts more than the broken kneecap he’s sure he’s got. His fingers placing the lightest impact they can help, he touches where the pain’s most excruciating – it’s something like a broken rib. He realizes he’s trying his best not to breathe. 

One step at a time. Straighten yourself. Give your lungs enough space to expand. Baekhyun forces himself to take bigger gulps, holding on to the railings, till he’s less lightheaded. Test out the knee – the jolts of razor-sharp pain radiating from it make him nearly lose his grip on the railings. No – you’ll have to put your weight on your right leg. The rib: keep your body straight. Don’t let the edge of the broken rib pierce your lungs, because then you’ll be fucking dead. The door of the elevator opens. Baekhyun stumbles out in his cloud of pain. 

One step at a time. Baekhyun makes it, somehow, to the outside of the building, half-carried by the current of the soldiers running out, shaking his head so his eyes clear from the tears. The gunshot is the one sound, carrying over the alarm that hasn’t stopped, that makes Baekhyun find them immediately. He looks over in time to see Kyungsoo fall to the ground near the perimeter fence, EXO surrounded by a riot squad. 

His last chance. Baekhyun forces his breath even, keeps his torso straight, his limp minimal. Slips his hands inside his sleeves so they can’t see his white knuckles and trembling fists, his only coping mechanism. He spots the captain of the riot squad, standing off to the side, watching his troops. 

Straighten up. Deep breath. Baekhyun checks that his chains are still on, jamming the piercing ends together hard so they cling to his flesh, but the pain is nothing amidst the wreck his body now is. They’re the only shield, the only weapon he has now. Clears his throat. 

“Captain,” Baekhyun’s throat is ragged, but he wrests his voice low, calm. The captain turns, sees Baekhyun’s chains. His eyes go wide. Salutes and stands at attention till Baekhyun nods. Baekhyun can’t look at the torture his squad’s subjected to in front of him, for fear of his eyes, his breath betraying him. The captain hands him a helmet. 

“Sir, we will release the tear gas next, sir,” the captain reports. Baekhyun puts it on and nods, barely daring to breathe. If the captain will take orders from him, he’s got a chance to organize their exit from this camp. Baekhyun can see the military van fleet not far away. 

Even through the helmet the screams from his squad from the tear gas are unbearable. The sound Kyungsoo makes – pure, distilled pain – struggling on the floor crushes Baekhyun’s jaws together, sears through his mind like a knife leaving a scar and he’s thankful, now, for the helmet that buffers his face. His fists throb in his sleeves. 

The riot squad rounds EXO up. Baekhyun points to the military vans. The captain nods. EXO kneels before the frontline with guns to their heads, handcuffs on their wrists. Baekhyun leans over with his breath caught behind his throat. 

“Load them up.” 

“Yes, sir,” the captain barks, then turns to his squad. “Load them up!” 

Baekhyun watches as they throw his squad into a van, the relief teetering on his diaphragm where it hurts most to breathe. He won’t let it fall yet. “I’ll handle it,” he says to the captain. 

“Yes, sir,” the captain obeys, opening the door of the driver’s seat for him. The pain, so intense and electrifying that it’s bound to have sizzled his flesh, is everywhere when he settles in. He forces his wrecked leg in the van. The captain closes the door and steps back, salutes. Baekhyun jams his foot on the accelerator. 

\---

The van moves. Jongdae rolls off their heap of bodies, rearranging their tangle of limbs to free a groaning Kyungsoo, his lips white. Jongdae’s sleeve around his wound is soaked in blood. Yixing’s still trying to force it out of himself, slamming his hand against the side of the van, willing his power from a body that’s too weak, too ravaged, too hindered to give it. 

It’s too late now, too late to find Baekhyun, to kill the Major, for them to fight their way out of this. If their powers haven’t regained thus far, it must take hours, maybe days, and where they’ll end up when that happens is anyone’s guess. The van is hurtling through the air, the outside zipping past much too quick for Jongdae to hazard a guess. The force at which Jongdae had been thrown into Sehun, even a long way away from the explosion, so strong that it still feels like muscle memory now, belies the faith he wants to hold on to. It’s laughable to think anyone – mutant or otherwise – could survive it up close. Jongdae suddenly feels very limp, as though all the fight, all the charge has been drained out of him. This is the end. 

He looks up at his members and finds the prospect of death in their eyes. Jongin, Minseok weakly trying to staunch the blood from Kyungsoo’s calf, their wrists scored red. Chanyeol’s fist trembling with the force that he’d tried to drag his power out. Sehun’s head bowed, his shoulders shaking. 

Minutes bleed into each other; Kyungsoo passes out and Junmyeon pumps his chest, yelling at Kyungsoo till he chokes, eyebrows knitted in pain, but conscious. Jongdae’s left to picture the million bloody ways his captain dies: torn apart by the blast, left to choke on his blood in the floor of the control room, out with a shot to the head by a guard as he tried to run. The bile is thick on the back of Jongdae’s tongue. 

It throws them all off balance when the van skids to a stop. Jongdae’s not sure if the pain in his body has waned, or it’s just a numbness that comes with capitulation. The back of the van opens and Jongdae can see immediately that it’s the sergeant from earlier. There’s the outline of a camp, very similar to the one they had been thrown under gunpoint to poison, behind him. Jongdae can’t bring himself to think what the sergeant might have brought them here for – if Monster had a reach that extended beyond the one camp – 

The sergeant removes his helmet, and Jongdae has his lungs snatched from him for the millionth time today. His captain pulls the chains – the very chains that had stunned the rest of Squad EXO into shock and stunned Jongdae into faith – attached to his lip off, a trail of blood grazing his chin. His smile, something between relief and pain, twists a knot of emotion in Jongdae’s throat. Time pauses. 

Chanyeol, closest to the door, makes to get up. Jongdae can see his fists braced and jumps, his handcuffed wrists against Chanyeol’s, “no, guys – it’s Baekhyun, our Baekhyun –“ 

“He –“ 

“It’s a long story,” Baekhyun says, and it’s only now that Jongdae realizes his lips are white as ash, his voice a shadow of what it should be, but the smile hasn’t left his face. “First – need to make sure Monster is destroyed, I don’t know how much damage my bomb did in the control room. The main air base –” Baekhyun jerks his thumb at the camp behind them and swallows thickly, grimacing. Jongdae gets it, now, why Baekhyun had thought to stop here – if the Monster programme had had to have to launch covert attacks on the government army, then the government must not know the depths of the ruse the Major has been trying to camouflage. It’s only the greed of one individual that they must subvert. 

“Going to head inside and tell them everything, make sure the Monster programme gets terminated. I have the uniform for credibility. You guys stay here just in case, if I don’t come out in an hour –“ 

Jongdae jumps out of the van a fraction of a second before Baekhyun collapses against him, his chest heaving, his face contorted in pain, breathing hard for several seconds, Jongdae’s wrists raw from the instinctive yank he’d made trying to catch his captain. 

“Baekhyun?” Jongdae whispers, his heartbeat so loud that his heart must be working, even though Jongdae can only feel choking space where it should be. 

It takes several seconds, but Baekhyun nods, his cheeks and lips looking like death. “I’m okay. Broken rib. The air base –“ 

Chanyeol hops out of the van, then Junmyeon, Minseok. “We’ll go together,” Junmyeon says, squeezing Baekhyun’s hand hard. They spread Baekhyun’s arms over Jongdae’s and Junmyeon’s shoulders, Kyungsoo on Chanyeol’s back. Jongin and Yixing run ahead to the guards at the gate, their handcuffed wrists in the air, explaining, gesturing to EXO’s casualties behind. The guards lower their guns, radio for medical help when they see Baekhyun’s uniform. It’s an awkward hold with both his arms supporting Baekhyun from behind while walking ahead, but Jongdae doesn’t let Baekhyun go. They have a long time to tell their story, so for now he keeps Baekhyun’s hand tightly clasped in his even when the stretchers arrive, whispers against the shell of Baekhyun’s ear when they move towards the medical bay. 

_Welcome back, Captain._


End file.
